播客的流行可以说是爆炸性的。

虽然对于现有的播客的总量并没有一个得到广泛接受的估算，但据最大的播客发布商苹果公司（Apple）报告，已有超过10亿人下载了该公司提供的（8种语言的）25万个条目。

正如博客已让几乎每个人都有机会达及过去只有大量发行的报纸才能达及的读者，播客绕过了传统媒体，让其制作者能够拥有他们所能吸引到的尽可能多的听众。

最早的播客出现在2003年。它们当时是包含在RSS订阅内容中的音频文件。为最早的播客献声的新闻工作者克里斯托弗·林顿（Christopher Lydon）看到了播客的潜力，并在最近接受《卫报》（The Guardian） 的采访时说，最早的播客创作者的目标是让“每位男性、女性和儿童都成为播音发布者”。

谁是听众？

最近的一次调查（英文链接）显示，有40%的美国人曾经听过播客，还有24%在一个月内听过播客。这与2008年相比增幅很大，当时只有18%的人说他们听过播客，而近期内听过的仅有9%。

播客的种类繁多，既有The Ben Shapiro Show这种深受喜爱的一小时长的新闻评论，又有Not Your African Cliché这类在尼日利亚的四名年轻女性挑战固有观念的内容，还有新加坡的高科技高管伯纳德·梁（Bernard Leong）主持的Analyse Asia这样的节目。但它们都有一个共同点：都是谈话节目。

尼基·席尔瓦（Nikki Silva）说：“声音有一种迅速深入人心的魅力。我认为它具有惊人的力量。”席尔瓦和戴维亚·纳尔逊（Davia Nelson）自1980年代初以来一直共同制作“厨房姐妹”（The Kitchen Sisters）这个电台节目。最近，她们一直在为美国公共广播电台（NPR）和英国广播公司（BBC)录制播客节目，并制作她们自己深受喜爱的播客The Kitchen Sisters Present。席尔瓦说：“人们一般戴着耳塞独自聆听，而电台广播则经常是在房间里或汽车里放出来听的。播客有一种私密感”。

听众会听多长时间？

爱迪生研究机构（Edison Research）最近进行的一项调查发现，播客听众平均会订阅6个节目。这项调查还发现85%的听众长期收听他们订阅的全部或大部分节目，证明了播客制作者与听众沟通的能力。

制作自己的播客节目需要有录音设备——小到智能手机或电脑，大到收费高昂的录音室——以及一个托管平台（很多公司都提供免费的托管服务）。当然你还得有话要说。

席尔瓦说：“没有守门人。并不是你的听众多得你必须够资格才能播音。你也不一定要赚到钱，任何人——我是说任何人——都能去做。”

席尔瓦建议那些没有专业录音设备的人可以考虑借用图书馆或高校拥有的设备。她还说，哪怕只有一只手机也能用来录制播客。她表示：“人们的选择和机会很多，而条条框框却很少。”

The popularity of podcasts has exploded.

While there are no widely accepted estimates of the total number of podcasts available, Apple — the largest distributor — reports that more than a billion people have downloaded the 250,000 titles (in eight languages) it offers.

Just as blogs have given almost everyone the opportunity to reach readers in the way only big-distribution newspapers once could, podcasts bypass traditional media and let their creators speak to as large an audience as they can attract.

The earliest podcasts came in 2003. They were audio files enclosed in an RSS feed. The journalist Christopher Lydon, who voiced those first podcasts, saw their potential and recently told The Guardian that the original creators’ goal was to make, “every man, woman and child a broadcaster.”

Who listens?

A recent study reports that 40 percent of Americans have at some time listened to a podcast, and 24 percent have listened in the past month. That is a jump from 2008, when only 18 percent said they had ever listened to a podcast and only 9 percent had done so recently.

Podcasts are as varied as The Ben Shapiro Show, a popular, hour-long news analysis; Not Your African Cliché, in which four young women in Nigeria confront stereotypes; and Singaporean tech executive Bernard Leong’s Analyse Asia. But they have one thing in common: they’re all talk.

“There’s something about the voice that just cuts deep and quick,” said Nikki Silva. “I think it has an amazing power.” Under the name The Kitchen Sisters, Silva and Davia Nelson have produced radio since the early 1980s. Recently, they have been making podcasts for National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S. and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as well as their own popular podcast, The Kitchen Sisters Present. “People are generally listening through earbuds in a very solitary way, whereas with radio you’re often listening in an open room, or in the car. There’s an intimacy to podcasting,” Silva said.

How long do listeners hang around?

A study by Edison Research finds that the average podcast listener subscribes to six shows. The study also shows that 85 percent of listeners stay with most or all of their podcasts — a testament to podcasters’ ability to connect with their audiences.

Starting a podcast of your own requires a recording device — which can be anything from a smartphone or computer to an expensive recording studio — and a place to host it. (Many companies offer free hosting plans.) It also requires that you have something to say, of course.

“There’s no gatekeeper,” said Silva. “It’s not like you have to have so many listeners in order to be qualified to be on air. It’s not like you have to make money. Anybody — I mean anybody — can do it.”

Silva suggests that people without access to professional recording equipment  should consider equipment available for use through libraries or universities. Even a cell phone, she said, can be used to record a podcast. “There are so many options and opportunities for people and very few rules.”